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Google Told To Expand Right To Be Forgotten
mpicpp writes with this news from the BBC: Google is under fresh pressure to expand the 'right to be forgotten' to its international .com search tool. A panel of EU data protection watchdogs said the move was necessary to prevent the law from being circumvented. Google currently de-lists results that appear in the European versions of its search engines, but not the international one. The panel said it would advise member states' data protection agencies of its view in new guidelines. However, a link is provided at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen offering an option to switch to the international .com version. This link does not appear if the users attempted to go to a regional version in the first place. Even so, it means it is possible for people in Europe to easily opt out of the censored lists.
Brought to you by the same people who invented Mandatory Data Retention, a politician's: we need to preserve accurate history for government control, but allow narcissistic individuals to enforce social forgetting. Only the powerful may control their own memory.
I mean, seriously, what will they be doing next? Asking all proxies, VPNs, and TOR to filter "right to be forgotten" search results. All airlines and airports offering international flights will require memory wipers to remove any "right to be forgotten knowledge" from your brain. All libraries, archives, repositories and public records offices will be required to go through old paper copies of documents with tipex...
(Fun fact: "Right to be forgotten" censoring was basically Winston Smith's day job in 1984...)
Send the request to be forgotten to the site that actually hosts the information. That way it will disappear in all search engines.
If Europe can regulate what the whole world sees on Google, why not China?
If they do go through with it, let's at least have a www.google.us without the censorship. (Probably a good idea anyway.)
That wouldn't cover sites outside of EU jurisdiction, which the EU not unreasonably thinks makes it a poor solution.
If you have put something unpleasant behind you, then really it should not matter if details of it are still available for other people to read... In fact, if it does, then the matter isn't really behind you at all. if other people are going to judge you by your past, that's unfortunate, but that's also just life... It shouldn't be up to legislation to change how liable people are to judge books by their covers, as it were.... That's a moral failing on their part.
People need to live their lives the best that they can... everyone fucking makes mistakes, and we learn to live with them. I used to know somebody who was crippled for life as a teenager because he was being reckless. he could easily still be reminded every single day of his life, even now over 30 years later, of what he should have done... so you can't somehow say that the Internet is somehow different just because something online can last forever, because there's other stuff that can be just as interminable.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The world-wide web is most definitely not under their jurisdiction either. Europe has no authority to censor the internet on behalf of the rest of the world.
The law does not allow that. It would be censorship. The law only requires commercial companies who are not protected by things like public interest journalism handle your personal data in a certain way. For example, banks are not allowed to tell other banks about bankruptcies you had 20 years ago. Google is not exempt from these requirements.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This is the big thing. Not just NSA, but retailer cameras selling stuff you literally "browse" by foot in the aisle. According to this article, Google and Facebook have the biggest "face banks" for the facial recognition software. Can they be told to forget that, too? If not, you aren't really "forgotten" just because you don't appear in a search engine. I don't think Europe could pass a law making Google delete the information. http://www.fastcocreate.com/30...
Gently reply
EU is not going to shut Google down. What everyone's going to use? Bing?
Well, it's not that different from me (non-US citizen) receiving DMCA requests. If I mail them back that I don't care about laws that are not valid in my country some Americans seem unable to understand why I refuse to take action.
I understand we have little control over what the media prints but don't you think a web site owner has far more control over what google/yahoo/bing collects? Isn't there a no/google code that tells google do not collect/save/linkto ?? that sites can use? Not a coder don't know html nor do I care to leans no web sites in my future. AND what about the site that prints the story/article/whatever why should it just be google they are not creating the story they link to it kinda in a way as they say to use no humans read or look at any data lol ya right.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Send the request to be forgotten to the site that actually hosts the information. That way it will disappear in all search engines.
The law does not allow that. It would be censorship.
That's OK, censorship is alive and well in many countries. For example, those in which truth is not an absolute defense in libel cases. It should not matter what your intent is if you are only using facts unless you are deliberately using them to defraud, e.g. by careful omission of relevant information.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The Stalin-era edition of Soviet Encyclopedia — a monumental collection of large volumes not unlike Britannica — once had a large article (full of praises, of course) about Lavrenty Beria. When Stalin died, Beria lost to others and was promptly shot.
To erase the memory of those praises, all owners of the encyclopedia (there weren't that many) were required to cut out the article about him — and replace it with an article about Bering Strait. True story...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Editing the historical record sounds awfully like hiding your past. Why isn't this like pretending the Holocaust or Stalins purges just never happened? Wouldn't IBM like to assert (without contradiction) that it never assisted the Nazis in the Death Camps?
This is an initiative only a corporate tool could love.
Outsource their Advertising business to a subsidiary that has no control of what search results appear on the page.
Let that subsidiary do all business in Europe; let the search company not do any business in Europe.
And then the search company can simply ignore all requests to control search results as out of jurisdiction.
A place where dirty laundry that has been removed from the google search engine can be listed.
This would rely on some kind of time-based diff, or on Google publishing a list of the links it has removed just prior to removing them.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The state forgets YOU!
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
This law is total nonsense even if you agree with the concept of being forgotten, because the law doesn't even go after the content!
If you have issues with content on the web, you should be going after the host of the content, not search engines who just arbitrarily index.
The ONLY reason this law is targeting major international search engines is because the EU knows that if the law targets the actual content owners, then the law would never be enforceable. By targeting major international search engines, they can enforce it (IE, they are being lazy).
This law is essentially useless because isn't actually causing ANYTHING to "be forgotten", the content is still out there, and non-international search engines like DuckDuckGo and many others will continue to return that content.
So essentially it is a useless law, that accomplishes nothing except forcing Google, Bing, and Yahoo to waste resources.
I need to be able to look up all information about someone. If I didn't, I wouldn't need the internet. I would just ask them to attach anything they felt I should know to their application.
So if they break Google, I will need another search engine. It may need to be run from somewhere outside the control of the EU, USA, NSA, FBI and so on..
Perhaps there is someone in Russia who knows about computers?
I'll stick to the EU over the USA though. Less militaristic and their silliest ideas are aimed for human beings and against corporates. At least they want us to think they are trying...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Except in the case listed, you're basically removing things based on charges that have been shown as untrue (or at least unsubstantiated) in a court of law.
However, what people seem to be *actually* using the tool for is to remove things that are personally uncomfortable, but not untrue. So if salesman X is noted for scamming a bunch of people, or Banker Y is shown doing something inappropriate things, they can then get any linked articles about their behaviour removed. Then, when a new customer comes to Salesman X for Banker Y, they look them up and "hey, I can only find good things about this guy, I guess he's legit"
This is one of the most ridiculous rulings ever... if there is incorrect information out there it should be corrected at the source... not removed from a search engine. If the information is true, then too bad. People don't have a right to try to hide public information... that's why it's called public. This was just a half-ass ruling shifting the responsibility of policing information to search engines. Search engines don't create the information, they just make it easier to find.
The problem is you can't anymore, without forgetting to use the web in its entirety.
Bullshit. You name me one Google service that you can't live without. Last time I checked, Google Beating Heart or Google Breathing Air were not available yet.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
"He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future." - Orwell, 1984
Correct information itself is never out of date. If someone has been charged with a crime, that fact stays, even if s/he was found not guilty.
I wonder whether you would take such an unqualified position if you, yourself, were an innocent party who had been maliciously/negligently taken to court. In the real world, having that kind of thing hanging over you despite your complete innocence and having done nothing wrong of any kind can and does destroy lives. For example, there was an infamous case in the UK a few year ago when a paediatrician -- a doctor who specialises in helping children -- was run out of their home by vigilantes who were too stupid to know the difference between a paediatrician and a paedophile.
You are correct, of course, that facts are facts. I would even agree that universal knowledge is, in principle, a good thing if you also have universally rational and fair observers accessing and using that knowledge. For example, historians are typically interested in getting as much complete and accurate information about a period of history as possible, and they place great emphasis on the quality of sources and corroborating evidence. They are unlikely to leap to damaging conclusions based on a single dubious source.
However, in reality the people accessing information on the Internet are only human, and in reality even well-meaning people may come across incorrect or misleading information and make judgements based on it without realising they were in error. That means sometimes it does make sense to conceal information, at least partially or for a limited period of time, in order to protect other humans from unfair harm.
I believe everyone has a basic moral right to fair treatment in this respect, particularly because the damage to a wronged individual if that right is violated will be far greater than the damage to someone who just didn't trivially find out about some possibly incorrect allegations.
I also note that the justice systems in almost every civilised country take a similar view, often such that even actual criminal convictions become "spent" after a time and no longer need to be disclosed. It turns out that sometimes people do change and that encouraging the successful rehabilitation of past offenders makes that much more likely than leaving them with some minor infraction hanging over them for the rest of their lives.
On the contrary, it shows how socialistic nanny-states try to force companies founded in free countries to adhere by their standards.
You and I have very different definitions of freedom. I assume that in yours my freedom of movement also extends to the right to enter your home and my freedom of expression extends to the right to spray paint abusive comments all over it?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
For example, there was an infamous case in the UK a few year ago when a paediatrician -- a doctor who specialises in helping children -- was run out of their home by vigilantes who were too stupid to know the difference between a paediatrician and a paedophile.
So, you're arguing that due to English schtupidity (pronounce as Clarkson), Google should conceal factually correct data from being discovered while it is perfectly visible elsewhere on the web?
in reality the people accessing information on the Internet are only human, and in reality even well-meaning people may come across incorrect or misleading information and make judgements based on it without realising they were in error. That means sometimes it does make sense to conceal information, at least partially or for a limited period of time, in order to protect other humans from unfair harm.
No disagreement there.
I believe everyone has a basic moral right to fair treatment in this respect, particularly because the damage to a wronged individual if that right is violated will be far greater than the damage to someone who just didn't trivially find out about some possibly incorrect allegations.
And this is the part where it becomes interesting. Remember what is happening here. Google is a search engine, an indexer of information that is readily available elsewhere. If the Guardian reports about child-abuse allegations against John Doe, and Mr Doe is acquitted in court, the report about the allegations are still correct. You're arguing that Google should no longer be allowed to produce search results that link to the original allegations. I'm arguing that this is a silly way of handling things. If one would really want to protect the acquitted, the law should mandate that the article be amended with information regarding the acquittal.
Obscuring the fact that the original allegation was made by passing laws against an indexing service smells like Chinese Censorship to me, and I find that to be a dangerous slippery slope.
I also note that the justice systems in almost every civilised country take a similar view, often such that even actual criminal convictions become "spent" after a time and no longer need to be disclosed. It turns out that sometimes people do change and that encouraging the successful rehabilitation of past offenders makes that much more likely than leaving them with some minor infraction hanging over them for the rest of their lives.
Totally agree there. But my point remains valid: in such a case the origin of the information should be affected, not the indexer. And also, most criminal convictions will stay on the record (especially in the case of felonies), but won't be taken into account (or to a lesser extent) when performing a background check. In my former home country (The Netherlands) that usually means 4 years for infractions, 8 years for felonies. The record itself stays and the individual can go to the courthouse to see the rapsheet, but it will not be disclosed to anyone.
I assume that in yours my freedom of movement also extends to the right to enter your home and my freedom of expression extends to the right to spray paint abusive comments all over it?
You have the freedom of movement that extends to the border of my properties. Your freedom of expression extends to the right to say whatever you want. Spray painting is not free speech, that would be infringement on my property rights. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who once said:
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
A search engine ruins your life not by merely "publishing" the false/outdated information, but by pushing it up to the top of the search results meaning that it's the first thing that people see. The right to be forgotten protects the subject from accidental discovery. That's a good thing.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Consider also that while I personally would not be fussed if the world discovered the real name of "Half-pint HAL", but I post pseudonymously here so it doesn't become the first thing people see when they search for me. I use various pseudonyms (some unique, some repeated) on various different sites.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
More seriously, is it possible under the law to replace "Right to be forgotten" links with a big red "THIS POST HAS BEEN BLOCKED IN YOUR COUNTRY, PURSUANT TO THE RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN"?
No, because the article has to be delinked from the search. Furthermore, there would be a risk of falling foul of defamation laws, as you could be interpreted as implying something about the subject of the search.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
So, you're arguing that due to English schtupidity (pronounce as Clarkson), Google should conceal factually correct data from being discovered while it is perfectly visible elsewhere on the web?
No, I'm arguing that because of human nature search engines should be required not to promote misleading or inaccurate information that may lead to unfair inferences being drawn about innocent people, once the search engines are explicitly made aware that they are doing so.
If one would really want to protect the acquitted, the law should mandate that the article be amended with information regarding the acquittal.
Ideally, yes. Unfortunately from this point of view, there are plenty of places in the world where they will tell you to go hang, because their right to mislead people about you is more important than your right to be treated fairly. This law is the closest we have right now to routing around that problem.
You have the freedom of movement that extends to the border of my properties. Your freedom of expression extends to the right to say whatever you want. Spray painting is not free speech, that would be infringement on my property rights.
Indeed. But if you apply the same logic from the other direction to cases like this, you see why it's important not to promote misleading or incorrect information about innocent people.
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
I suppose the difference is that in the centuries since Jefferson said that, we have learned that the pen is mightier than the sword, the printing press is mightier than the pen, and the Internet gives anyone the power of a printing press that can reach an audience of billions in moments and at negligible cost.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
That some people, or you, attributed an additional set of meaning to the results is your responsibility.
That's a lovely ivory tower you live in, but in the real world, your position is of little comfort to all the people who miss out on opportunities or suffer harm because someone did a quick web search and leapt to the wrong conclusions about the victim.
What next, I have a right to drive around at 90mph past the school down the road, and the law shouldn't stop be because I'm just exercising my freedom of movement and not necessarily doing any harm to anyone? Of course if I do hit a child, it will be my fault and the law will punish me, but that won't be any consolation to the dead child's parents.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
They are demanding to apply their laws to the entire world.
No they're not -- they're demanding that google.com doesn't keep pretending not to know that a user is based in the EU when they've already geolocated the user by IP address. It's like a club bouncer IDing an underager then suggesting he use the back door.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Why don't they just license The Great Firewall of China.
We all know this is where Europe is heading with this; the only difference is they're asking Google to implement it for them, rather than having to implement it themselves, as China has done.
The EU and the US need to clue in to the fact that their local laws don't apply globally, no matter how much it pisses them off that other nations do things differently.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Attempting to discourage bad behaviour is pretty much the only good reason to pass a law. Your inability to understand that even when presented with a very obvious and uncontroversial analogy is no-one's problem but your own.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
We enjoyed being forgotten until google came along. This is not about imposing a "new" right, this is about enjoying what we the previous generation has as a freedom. This is about reclaiming what search engine stole from us. As I already said multiple time on slashdot, a society which do not forget , helped by a seaerch engine, is a pathologic society which does not forgive, and ruins potentially lifes forever.
Google is a memory prosthesis. The fact that such a thing did not exist until recently, does not mean that there has ever been a right to ban it. We're in a transitional period where people haven't yet learned to adapt to it by properly discounting the importance of long-past events. If we just ban it now, we never will. The damage done by the transitional period is temporary, that caused by continuing to forget as before is not.
"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -George Santayana
The actual articles, records, whatever, aren't being removed and instead this whole 'right to be forgotten' goes after indexers of information.
Proponents keep pointing out that somebody can still find the information if they dig for it - or hire somebody to dig for it - and rather than removing information this just makes it harder for *regular people to find.
So people who can't afford it don't have access to that information and the internet becomes a less useful tool for those that can't afford to pay for LexisNexis (or whatever service it happens to be).
Not only a benefit for the pedos that get to have their records essentially expunged but a *huge blow to the economic viability of small businesses.
The wealthy get to use the internet - the poor not so much.
This is one of the most short sighted, and potentially destructive, things I've seen regarding internet regulation.
I'm arguing that because of human nature search engines should be required not to promote misleading or inaccurate information that may lead to unfair inferences being drawn about innocent people, once the search engines are explicitly made aware that they are doing so.
Unfortunately from this point of view, there are plenty of places in the world where they will tell you to go hang, because their right to mislead people about you is more important than your right to be treated fairly. This law is the closest we have right now to routing around that problem.
Ok, so we have nailed your point of view down to "we can't control the content of the book, but we do control the table of content". Don't you think that's a bit like shooting the messenger? Furthermore, don't you think that you're now placing an undue burden on a company that has nothing to do with the content that is being indexed?
I find this a typical case of where governments go wrong. They won't go after the one they need to go after, so they go after the one they can go after.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
This is NOT revisionism or censorship. The fact we got to be forgotten is a something we enjoyed for most of our history. Until google and search engine came along, then it went out of the window.
You are right, this is not revisionism or censorship. It is luddism. You cannot turn back the wheels. What do you think the HR people do when they realize google does not give them all results about job applicants any more? That's right, they use another search engine. Or build their own.
Nowadays the society has a lot better memory, one just needs to acknowledge this. And the society needs to learn to forgive. By legal means if necessary.
I'm pretty sure for "most of our history" people have lived in the same rural communities where, not only did everyone who regularly encountered you have a pretty good running list of all your past major mistakes (which makes a great way to pass the time) but good luck outliving their memory, especially for the big ones. Identifying tattoos have been used as punishments since at least Roman times, and I'm not aware of any historical laws which really reflect the idea of a "right to be forgotten." Obviously anyone who could write could have gone out of their way to keep records on you at any point in history.
Which is not to immediately say this right to be anonymous is a bad idea, but I don't see how you could support it as some kind of social inheritance.
But note where you have gotten your ideas of anonymity. I assume you're from a modern urban area. There are so many people and so many things to keep track of that everyone is effectively anonymous unless someone goes to an effort to make it otherwise. But this same process is exactly what is happening with the internet. The more information which is provided the more your individual details are washed out. Believe it or not Google and the modern data age is making you *more anonymous.* Lives are not being ruined forever. As time goes on we are soon going to start having to reconcile with the fact that *everyone* is going to have embarassing crap online, not just the unlucky few. In all likelihood we are going to quickly move past it as a society, at least as much as we have ever done before.
As for the accusation of revisionism and censorship : this is the exact reason why the search engine are asked to remove stuff, and NOT the original publication. Because then the information is still reachable by the same OLD fashioned way we did before : old fashioned research.
And exactly how long do you think it is before someone wants the original publication delisted as well? Or before governments realize that there is *lots* of stuff they can think of good reasons to delist? How hard do you think it is to extend the capability? Since you're interested in how history informs the present, why don't you go back a couple hundred years or so and pick out a dozen governments you would trust to have this level of control over what information is presented to the public. Any contenders?
As far as I am concerned the major improvements and liberalization in many governments in recent years relates directly to an increase in public transparency and communication. To a large degree those things happened simply because they were outside the government's control to stop. Now we're back on the otherside of the pendulum where technology is returning power to control information into their hands. I think if you want to bet on their continued benevolence, then you aren't betting on history.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Ok, so we have nailed your point of view down to "we can't control the content of the book, but we do control the table of content".
That's not so much my point of view as the entire point of the court ruling.
Don't you think that's a bit like shooting the messenger? Furthermore, don't you think that you're now placing an undue burden on a company that has nothing to do with the content that is being indexed?
No, I really don't. The existence of services like Google's dramatically amplifies the damage that would otherwise be done by sites that publish incomplete or misleading information about people. Google may not be the original source of the problem, but it is still contributing to it, and as such I don't see why it should get a free pass when it has been explicitly notified that it is doing so.
They won't go after the one they need to go after, so they go after the one they can go after.
That's a false dichotomy. In law, you can only ever go after someone within your jurisdiction, and in this case either or both of the original source and a search engine that directs people to it would be required by law to comply if they are within that jurisdiction.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
If that's your argument, go after the people publishing the information: newspapers and commercial databases.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. You can go after the original source with a direct defamation action if they're within the same jurisdictions. All this law means is that just because the original source has escaped to a different jurisdiction, that doesn't give everyone else a free pass to propagate and amplify incorrect or misleading information about someone.
But preventing Google from returning those search results is only intended to hurt Google and to make it difficult for regular folks to get at information.
That's a very cynical viewpoint. One plausible alternative is that it's meant to stop people from missing out on say a job or a mortgage they would otherwise have had just because someone once accused them of doing something inappropriate that they did not in fact do.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
We enjoyed being forgotten until google came along.
Google is not hosting the data that you wish did not exist. A site external to Google is holding that data. Google's position in all of this is helping you FIND the data.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
"I'm pretty sure for "most of our history" people have lived in the same rural communities where, not only did everyone who regularly encountered you have a pretty good running list of all your past major mistakes"
Move away start your life elsewhere was always a possibility. With a search engine you cannot. this invalidate this point. We enjoyed a natural right of being forgotten by virtue of going somewhere else where we could be anonymous and unknown. There was only an old fashioned way to find about you : physically go to the library and look for journal snippets with your name. Which was a very time consuming process, so most people would not do it. And that include your new neighbors , your new job. De facto, google is not making you more anonymous, it is making you LESS anonymous, unless you are named with a very generic "John Smith" name. Today your new neighbors, your new job can google your name. And chance is , that it will find you. And that is what we lost and the right to be forgotten is trying to set back.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
In law, you can only ever go after someone within your jurisdiction, and in this case either or both of the original source and a search engine that directs people to it would be required by law to comply if they are within that jurisdiction.
Ok, so your point is that as long as Google operates within a certain country, it should comply with all laws in that country? Take this one step further. Google operates in China, do you expect Google to comply with all Chinese laws, including censorship, as well? No of course you don't. Chinese law is applied on google.cn, not on google.com.
And this is exactly what's going on here, according to TFA, or even the summary:
Google currently de-lists results that appear in the European versions of its search engines, but not the international one.
This would imply that China (or the EU for that matter) is now forcing its own laws on the international version of Google. Which means that they would be grossly overstepping the bounds of their own jurisdiction.
And for what it's worth: there is no such thing as EU law. There are EU directives, which have to be implemented into local law by its member states. Which means that, assuming you agree with me on the China analogy, Google would only have to censor individual country-specific TLD search results such as google.nl, google.de, google.be etc. And what is happening now is that the EU tries to force Google to change the international version of Google, meaning it is attempting to shove EU directives through the rest of the world's throats.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
Ok, so your point is that as long as Google operates within a certain country, it should comply with all laws in that country?
Yes, of course. And domain names are utterly irrelevant to this.
This would imply that China (or the EU for that matter) is now forcing its own laws on the international version of Google. Which means that they would be grossly overstepping the bounds of their own jurisdiction.
Not really. A state can only impose sanctions against a business to the extent that the business falls within its jurisdiction, but otherwise no business has any power to override national laws in nations where it operates, so it has to play by the rules or accept the consequences. It really is as simple as that.
And yes, this does create fundamental problems if one nation's laws are directly contradictory with another's and you want to operate in both. This is currently a significant problem for US IT companies who are subject to obligations under US law to supply information on demand to certain security organisations, but also subject to obligations under the laws of European countries where they operate that prohibit sharing personal data by default. However, the inability to lawfully operate everywhere in the world simultaneously is a problem for the business, not for any of the nations involved.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Yes, of course. And domain names are utterly irrelevant to this.
A state can only impose sanctions against a business to the extent that the business falls within its jurisdiction, but otherwise no business has any power to override national laws in nations where it operates, so it has to play by the rules or accept the consequences. It really is as simple as that.
I think you have just proven my point. Google operates in Germany with its google.de domain name and its own Google legal entity for Germany. Google operates in The Netherlands with its google.nl domain name and its own Google legal entity for The Netherlands. Google operates in Belgium with its google.be domain name and its own Google legal entity for Belgium. Google operates in the US with its google.com domain name and Google Inc.
Why would some local I-feel-important politician that hasn't even been chosen directly in The Netherlands be in the position to dictate a foreign entity what to do? Let them have jurisdiction of google.nl.
Lawmakers need to simply accept the consequences that connecting to a global network (the internet) means that there are boundaries with regards to their legal jurisdiction. If the EU does not want to deal with American companies, they should choose to disconnect. If China can do it, then the EU can do it as well. And I honestly, honestly do not see a difference between the censorship in China and the censorship of the EU. Well, maybe one thing: at least China does it openly.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
Google operates in Germany with its google.de domain name and its own Google legal entity for Germany.
That's a nice theory, but rather like the complicated international revenue shifting arrangements these companies use to avoid paying tax, you're going to have trouble finding any politicians who accept your argument.
If the EU does not want to deal with American companies, they should choose to disconnect.
Be careful what you wish for. That is the logical conclusion to your argument, and it would be damaging for everyone but much more so for the American companies. For a start, given the defaults in the relevant browsers, most Google users at least in English-speaking countries probably arrive via google.com not their local equivalent so just blocking that one domain would probably cost Google a small fortune.
And I honestly, honestly do not see a difference between the censorship in China and the censorship of the EU. Well, maybe one thing: at least China does it openly.
I don't really know how to respond to that. To me, the difference between allowing individuals to assert a right not to have misleading information about them knowingly propagated with damaging results and allowing a national government to arbitrarily censor access to information about the government itself by its own people is night and day.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.